page_title: John Bull (prophet)
hierarchical_section_title: John Bull (prophet)
caption_attribution_description: English: Thomas Heywood's pamphlet, A true discourse of the two infamous upstart prophets (1636), with a woodcut of John Bull and Richard Farnham. Reproduced by James Caulfield in 1795.
context_page_description: John Bull was an English self-proclaimed prophet who claimed to be one of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, alongside Richard Farnham. Through the late 1630s and early 1640s, they established a small religious following surrounding their prophesies.
  Originating from Colchester, and working as a weaver in London, Bull first came to the attention of the authorities in a crackdown on the "sectaries or schismatiques" of London, in early 1636. As members of a private conventicle and religious dissenters, both Farnham and Bull were arrested and interrogated on 16 April. With both men imprisoned, pamphleteer Thomas Heywood recorded their outlandish views in a 1636 tract, with the supposed prophets claiming to have power over the elements, and that it was their fate to be "slaine at Hierusalem" and "rise again". Sensational literature surrounded the pair, and often emphasized their reputed group of female followers.
  Bull petitioned Archbishop Laud for his case to be heard at trial in 1638, but was not released until before 1641. By 1641, Bull was sick with the plague and, contrary to their prophesies, both prophets died in January 1644.
context_section_description: John Bull (bur. 14 January 1642) was an English self-proclaimed prophet who claimed to be one of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, alongside Richard Farnham. Through the late 1630s and early 1640s, they established a small religious following surrounding their prophesies.
  Originating from Colchester, and working as a weaver in London, Bull first came to the attention of the authorities in a crackdown on the "sectaries or schismatiques" of London, in early 1636. As members of a private conventicle and religious dissenters, both Farnham and Bull were arrested and interrogated on 16 April. With both men imprisoned, pamphleteer Thomas Heywood recorded their outlandish views in a 1636 tract, with the supposed prophets claiming to have power over the elements, and that it was their fate to be "slaine at Hierusalem" and "rise again". Sensational literature surrounded the pair, and often emphasized their reputed group of female followers.
  Bull petitioned Archbishop Laud for his case to be heard at trial in 1638, but was not released until before 1641. By 1641, Bull was sick with the plague and, contrary to their prophesies, both prophets died in January 1644. After Bull's death, and in absence of their prophesied resurrection, Farnham and Bull's small group of followers claimed they had risen, and were converting the ten tribes of Israel, after which they would "reign forever". With their following diminishing, Bull and Farnham's life served as fodder for pamphleteers during the subsequent years of religious tumult.
caption: Thomas Heywood, A True Discourse of the Two infamous upstart Prophets (1636). A contemporary pamphlet on Bull and Farnham, with a woodprint of the "two infamous upstart prophets".
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